“Go, Suzanne,” I say admiringly. I have no idea how much she knows of G’s plan to sabotage her clients—or what I suspect is G’s plan to sabotage her clients—but it’s out of my hands now.
We stand there for a few more minutes when I feel the crowd start to ebb toward the hotel, like a tide receding. “Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats, the show’s about to start,” comes blaring over our heads.
“Shit,” I say to Suzanne. “We still have to hit ET, the L.A. Times, and probably W so the New York fashionistas can hear about her dress firsthand.”
“Then they’ll just have to seat her at the first commercial,” Suzanne says. “Go in and give them the heads-up.”
I dive back into the crowd and ride the current down to the hotel’s front entrance, where the lemmings are streaming in. Except for the gowns and tuxes, it feels like trooping back into high school after a fire drill. I make my way into the main ballroom with its ghastly glittery black ceiling and corner the first person in a headset I see.
“Well, she’s seated at a table in front so it won’t be the easiest thing,” the gofer huffs at me after conferring into his headset.
“Well, what can I tell you?” I say, raising my hands. “She’s going to be late.” Sometimes celebrity perk actually works in my favor.
The crowd pours in around us, landing according to their caste: nominees and a select handful of A-list producers and studio execs flow to the tables on the ballroom floor; agents, managers, assistants, and other guests scatter to the various parties to drink champagne and watch the ceremony on closed-circuit TV; publicists herd into the SRO ghetto at the back of the room, just off camera.
I turn and start for the door again, but am caught in a whirlpool of stars rushing for their tables. Courteney Cox. Tom Cruise. Tom and Rita. Michelle Pfeiffer. Katie Holmes. Ed Norton. James Gandolfini. Brad and Jennifer. It’s like the pages of a magazine fluttering by. Troy floats by talking animatedly to Kate Hudson. Somebody ought to cast them in a movie together. The lights dim and the crowd settles into their seats. Finally, my chance to escape back outside to Suzanne and the Phoenix. I start again for the door, when I feel a hand on my shoulder.
“I need to see you.”
G. Looking about as incendiary as he did when he arrived.
I don’t even pause. “Hey there,” I say, pulling free of his grasp. “Having a good time?”
But G is quick. Quicker than I am. “Not yet,” he says, clasping my arm again and turning me toward the door. We push through the crowd of publicists gathering at the back of the room and burst into the blazing hallway, squinting in the light.
“I assume this is your doing?” he says, still gripping my arm and propelling me past the latecomers sprinting down the hall. We come to rest against the wall, hemmed in by a large planter just opposite the doors to the auditorium.
“What’s my doing?” I say, shaking free of him. “She’s late because she’s late.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean her dress.”
I look at G. So it is true. He really is trying to get control of the agency by eliminating Suzanne’s clients. Otherwise, why would he care that the Phoenix is wearing a dress promoting the agency?
“Her dress?” I say, stalling him, my mind going in a thousand directions. So I was right about his plan. Still, why blow his cover here and with me? The Phoenix could still end up walking. G could still end up the victor. Why, unless he thought it was all in the bag? Until tonight.
“Her little publicity stunt,” he hisses.
“Oh, if you think I knew about that, I can assure you I did not,” I say, holding up my hands. “But it’s cool, don’t you think? Great promotion for us.”
G ignores me. “You lied to me. I told you to stay out of it.”
“Out of what?” I say, still playing dumb.
“I told you to stay away from other publicists’ clients. I asked you and you deliberately disobeyed me.”
Okay, you want to play it that way, we’ll play it that way. “Well, then I’m confused,” I say, smiling and shaking my head. “If I had anything to do with one of our biggest clients staying on—and I’m not saying I did—how would that be wrong? How would that merit this—”
“I don’t care about the clients,” he snaps, so loudly that a few heads swivel in our direction.
“You don’t care about the clients?” I say, all but batting my eyes.
“I care,” he says, drawing out the word, “that employees do what they’re asked. I care about loyalty. And you’ve just proved that I can’t trust you.”
“I think you’re making a few leaps of logic here,” I say, dropping my voice. If G’s going to have my head, I’d still prefer it didn’t make the morning’s gossip columns.
“We both know what’s going on,” he says, leaning in close, so I catch a whiff of his cologne. “I thought I could count on you. And I don’t like being wrong. I don’t like—”
Just then the gofer with the headset bursts out the door and catches sight of me. “It’s the break, it’s the break, where is she?” he all but screams. “If she’s coming in, it’s got to be now!”
I see my opening and I take it. “Okay, okay, I’m going,” I say, wriggling out from between the planter and G. “Hang on and I’ll get her.” I turn and all but sprint down the hall toward the hotel’s front entrance and the haven of the red carpet.
We’re heading into the second hour of the Globes—the second hour that I’ve been standing at the back of the room with the rest of the publicists cursing Manolo Blahnik’s name—when I decide to take a break and hit the bar for a Coke. Actually, I need something stronger, like a chair, but I’ll settle for sugar and caffeine.
Steven was here with me for about thirty minutes, until Troy miraculously won his category—and even more miraculously managed to thank Daddy Madden, the Fates, his AA group, me, Suzanne, “and the whole DWP gang,” without mentioning G or Peg. Although I intended to walk him through the press room, I decide to let Steven do it. Given G’s glowering presence—for some reason he and Suzanne are seated at the Phoenix’s table looking like Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt at Yalta—I want to stay close at hand when the Phoenix takes the stage. Besides, if I leave now, I’ll never make it back. Even sober, Troy still has his unerring party instincts. In fact, I bet Steven fifty bucks Troy heads straight from the press room to the Fox party.
U right, U win! flashes on my BlackBerry as I’m standing in line at the bar.
Told u, I type back, btw, cash only.
I take my Coke, down it, and head for the ladies’ room pondering the odds that if I collapse into one of the chairs in the lobby I’ll ever get up again. The Phoenix isn’t on for another half hour and there’s still a ton of awards to get through, most of which are the who-cares-except-for-their-mom-and-their-agent Best Supporting Whatever kind.
I slip into the ladies’ room with the awful pink tile, the conga line of women, stalky and bulky by turns in satin and perfume, and the Latina attendant not speaking, not meeting anyone’s eyes. I wedge in front of the mirror next to two agents with pencil-thin arms and eyes like cobras. I stand there assessing the rain damage to my hair, to my psyche, trying to remember how many of these things I’ve been to. How many more I am likely to attend. The thought is just too depressing. Growing old at black-tie events for others. I stand there for several more minutes. Until the agents move off. Until I realize if G doesn’t fire me, I’m going to quit.
When I get back to the ballroom, Rob Lowe has just won for something and is choking up onstage. I check my watch. Just past seven. I bend down to fish a program off the carpet and flip to the list of awards. I can’t make it out in the dark, but we must be getting close. Sharon Stone takes the stage to present something to someone. Or maybe just to show off her dress. Robin Williams, the show’s host or one of them, comes out and tells some more jokes. At least he’s funny, even if all that sweating is gross. Then two young blond actors I don’t recognize come out and
talk about the need for diversity in Hollywood. Must be referring to brunettes. But then Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Wesley Snipes, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Halle Berry join them on the stage and the whole room lumbers awkwardly to its feet and applauds. In the dark I hear someone say, “God almighty, alls we’s missin’ is Uncle Tom.”
“And DMX,” says another voice.
There are a few TV awards involving Vanessa Redgrave and another ancient English actor I can’t recall. Finally, it’s the Phoenix’s moment. It’s so big, it comes in three parts. A lullaby of a speech by David Geffen, who looks positively spectral out of his cave. A film highlighting the Phoenix’s career that also vividly recaps her plastic surgery. Finally, the Phoenix takes the stage minus the headdress, but with the feather boa wound strategically around her body. The applause is deafening. “She’s fucking great,” I hear a voice say in the dark.
The room falls silent. The Phoenix shades her eyes with her hand and gazes out at us. “Lifetime Achievement?” she says, looking down at the statuette. “That’s a little scary. I mean, it’s kind of like saying, ‘Thanks, don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.’ ”
The audience roars.
“Plus, I have to talk you through it—and there’s a high bar. Remember the year Barbra won?”
The audience titters.
“I didn’t think she’d ever shut up.”
The audience explodes.
“So shit,” she says, shaking her head. “I could stand up here and talk about all my movies. My albums. My furniture line . . .” She pauses expertly and the crowd laughs again. “My ‘work,’ ” she says, making quote marks with her fingers. “But I figure, why? I’m bored to tears by it. Besides, you just saw the compilation reel, which,” she pauses again and shakes her head, “proves once again that real change in Hollywood is only skin deep.”
The audience laughs again. They’re in love.
“So instead of talking about myself and my career, as weird and great and crappy as it’s been, I thought I would take a minute to talk about this strange business we’re all in.”
The audience shifts in their chairs. Settling in for the long haul.
“People always say we’re artists. Actually, they don’t always say it. We say it, because we have this need to believe it. But I’m here to tell you that after all the highs and lows I’ve been through, I don’t believe we are artists. And I don’t believe Hollywood is about making art. It may have been at one time. But it’s not now.”
The audience shifts awkwardly, uncertain now.
“I would suggest to you that we’re actually athletes playing a very strange game. Sometimes you’re lucky enough to be on the winning team. Most of the time you’re not. But the thing to remember is that it is a game. And we’re paid—usually overpaid—to play it. A lot of people think acting is a calling, and maybe there are a few of you lucky ones out there for whom that is true. I mean Vanessa,” she says, shading her eyes again and staring out at the room. “I think we can safely say you’re probably an actor first and a celebrity second.”
“Only because I’m English,” Vanessa shouts back, and the crowd laughs, grateful for this interruption.
The Phoenix laughs too and goes on. “Right. But I would suggest that for most of us working in Hollywood, making movies and television shows is no more or less significant than playing for the Yankees. Or the Mets. And requires a hell of a lot less talent. Not less determination. But less native talent.”
She pauses and looks down. The room is dead still. I can’t tell if they’re ready to lynch her or carry her out on their shoulders.
“It took me a long time to learn that,” she says, looking up. “And frankly, the times I’ve failed were more important to my understanding than the times I’ve succeeded. This is a good time,” she says, staring down at the statuette again. “And I have many people to thank for my being here. And I’m sure you’ll be relieved when I tell you that they all know who they are and don’t need to be reminded of that.”
The audience chuckles, relieved to be back on familiar territory.
“So I’ll leave you with two thoughts. Don’t take yourself too seriously, because God knows in the end, nobody else will.”
The crowd laughs, bolder now, sensing the finish line.
“And loyalty. You’re less important than you think you are, but others are more important than you think they are.”
Loyalty? She’s talking about loyalty after that speech she gave me? Either this is the biggest bunch of BS, like Troy tearing up in court, or somehow, somewhere, the Phoenix has changed her mind.
“This is a real ‘me first’ town,” she says, plunging on. “Actually, it’s a ‘Where’s mine?’ town, but let’s give it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that will never change. I mean, why should Hollywood be any different than the rest of the country? But if I’ve learned anything on my way here, it’s the fallacy of that attitude. So for what it’s worth,” she says, raising the statuette over her head, “thank you all.”
The room explodes, grateful that it’s over. From where I stand, I can’t judge any more of their reaction to this wrist-slapping from one of their own. I hardly know what I think of it. For all I know, they think she’s an infidel or Moses come down with the tablets.
“Well, that was interesting,” I hear someone next to me say.
“Please, she knows exactly what she’s doing,” comes another voice. “That just proves you can say anything and they’ll love you, if you’ve got a twenty-million-dollar TV deal in your back pocket.”
The crowd is on its feet now, hands pumping wildly. The Phoenix starts to exit and then turns back. “In case you’re wondering about my next career move,” she says, leaning into the microphone and speaking over the applause, “I’ll just tell you that my dress, customized with any six letters of your choosing, will be available on my website in the morning.”
The after-parties, like all award show after-parties, start early—it’s not even 8:30 P.M. PST when the lights come up—and go late. At least with the Globes, they’re all under one roof. Besides, with no Governors Ball to attend—everyone ostensibly eats during the award show, which is bullshit, because no one wants to be caught chewing on camera—everyone scatters to their home-team soiree the second it’s over.
This year, Miramax is down the hall in the Grand Ballroom, right next to NBC in Trader Vic’s. Paramount is up on the roof, as is Fox. HBO has taken over Griff’s downstairs next to the pool. InStyle has claimed the largest conference room off the lobby. Depending on who has won what during the show, the cachet of each party varies from year to year. Except for Miramax, which always acts like it’s the coolest girl in school no matter what pretentious nonsense it’s released.
As the evening’s big winner, the Phoenix has free reign to roam. Despite all the guys with headsets and clipboards guarding the door to each party, she will not be turned away from any of them. So far she’s hit InStyle, where she spent many minutes posing for pix in front of the magazine’s giant letterhead, and Paramount, because Viacom owns MTV and she needs to show the flag for her upcoming series.
Now she’s come to rest at HBO because everyone does, and here the Phoenix is holding court in a corner booth behind an invisible velvet rope. Actually, she’s picking at a plate of shrimp while greeting those few supplicants the bouncer admits to this party-within-a-party. Suzanne and G are somewhere around working the crowd, but it’s my job to stand next to the bouncer and give him the thumbs-up or -down on those seeking an audience. Mostly this is a no-brainer. Yes to Brad Grey. No to the woman in the see-through lace dress and top hat. Yes to Chris Albrecht. Okay, he doesn’t even stop, but then it is his party. Yes to Sarah Jessica Parker. A baby could do it. A baby should do it.
I’ve been standing here playing traffic cop for about thirty minutes wondering how many more shrimp the Phoenix can eat and whether she will actually speak to me this evening—so far I’ve been invisible—when Suzanne rolls up.
“You must be starving,” she says, handing me one of the two glasses of champagne she’s carrying. “Why don’t you take this, get some food and sit down for a second, and I’ll deal with this.”
She doesn’t have to ask me twice. I’d share a table with the scary chick in the top hat if I can just sit the fuck down. I do a drive-by of the nearest food table. The usual beef-salmon-roasted vegetables that all looks even more tired than I am. There’s also a sushi table, where I scoop up about three California rolls, and a pasta table, which I give a pass to. I swing by the dessert table, grab a mini crème brûlée tart, and turn to scan the room for a chair. Any chair.
I’m about to throw caution to the wind and squeeze into a table of Biggies sitting with some Sopranos cast members, when I spy an empty chair adjacent to one of the several television monitors set up around the room. Great. A chair, and I don’t have to talk to anybody to get it. I all but collapse into it, take a slug of champagne, and start in on my California rolls when the TV suddenly springs to life.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host, Robin Williams.”
Oh God, they’re replaying the entire show now? The sound from the set is deafening. Several people are staring in my direction at the screen. Didn’t you guys see it the first time? I look around for a place to move, but there’s not a chair in sight. Fuck it, my ears will just have to suffer to give my feet a break.
I sit there, trying to tune out the show while eating as fast as I can without choking. I’m just finishing the California rolls, heading for the crème brûlée, when I feel someone jostle my leg. I slide my legs out of the way and pop the tart in my mouth. But my leg is jostled again. Oh God, what? I turn. G, squatting by my side, smiling the most lethal smile since Jack Nicholson leered at Shelley Duvall in The Shining.
“So, Alex, here you are,” he says.
Or at least I think he does. It’s impossible to hear over the music and waves of laughter screaming from the TV. I smile and nod. Fuck you, very much. G says something else I can’t hear, but it must be serious since his smile disappears. I swallow the last of the brûlée, shake my head, and raise both my hands. Only dogs can hear you now, G.
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